text:
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Designed for the straight shooter with no interest in excess features, the Minimalist wallet is both purposeful and versatile. Its sleek outline fits seamlessly in the front pocket of your favorite jeans or tucked away in a day bag. If you find most wallets cumbersome, check out our simple and clean Minimalist.
Proudly made in Maine, USA.
Comes with our Lifetime Warranty


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The "siloed" structure of U.S. health agencies is hindering efforts to spot and combat animal-to-human afflictions, such as West Nile Virus, NYU sociologist Colin Jerolmack has concluded after conducting an organizational analysis of their operations.
The "siloed" structure of U.S. health agencies is hindering efforts to spot and combat animal-to-human afflictions, such as West Nile Virus, New York University sociologist Colin Jerolmack has concluded after conducting an organizational analysis of their operations.
Even though many newly emerging infectious diseases readily spread from one species to another, Jerolmack found that "agency members interpret certain diseases as 'livestock diseases' or 'wildlife diseases,' and they view categories of animals outside their purview as irrelevant to their institutional prerogatives. Consequently, there is little sense of mutual understanding and common goals – and thus little coordination – across these various organizations."
Jerolmack's study, which appears in the journal Sociology of Health and Illness, examined the following agencies and departments: a state Department of Health (DOH); the Department of Agriculture (USDA); a state Department of Wildlife; a state Department of Agriculture; and the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC). Through interviews with agency or departmental personnel, he looked at how the distinct organizational cultures of these agencies produced incompatible or even competing agendas that hampered efforts to respond to zoonoses—infectious diseases that can be passed between species.
Jerolmack's interviews revealed several instances in which agencies and departments adopted a siloed, rather than cooperative, approach when faced with zoonoses:
* A state Department of Agriculture official who bristled at efforts to remove livestock that may have posed a health risk to residents because, "We're here to support anyone doing farming [and] keeping animals… We want people to continue keeping animals on their property."
* "Strained" relationships between a state's Department of Health and Department of Agriculture "sometimes meant that the DOH did not receive information on circulating diseases in animals that may become a problem for humans later on." A DOH employee, noting that bird flu strains, particularly those found in livestock, can mutate quickly, said such outbreaks should be considered vital public health information—a view not shared by that state's Department of Agriculture.
* A city public health official, responding to an outbreak of salmonella, did not turn to the state's Department of Agriculture, the USDA, or any other agencies involved in animal health for help or information. Nor did it share information with them. The official "mentioned the need to change residents' cultural practices, but neglected veterinary medicine solutions," Jerolmack recounts.
* The same agency adopted a siloed approach in addressing other zoonoses, such as Lyme disease and West Nile virus: "It did not regularly communicate with animal agencies or analyze surveillance data on disease outbreaks in animals, but instead responded with medical and educational campaigns once one or more people became infected," Jerolmack writes.
Even instances in which agency cooperation has led to medical breakthroughs—such as the discovery that West Nile Virus may be transmitted from birds to humans—has not produced reform.
"Though the discovery of West Nile was greeted with alarm and massive pesticide sprays, it did not usher in a sea change regarding zoonotic surveillance and communications across states and agencies," Jerolmack observes, adding that a USDA official told him that following the West Nile outbreak in 1999, agency and departmental practices returned to "business as usual."
Jerolmack notes the CDC has recognized the need to do a better job of building relationships with the veterinary world. In 2006, it created the Geographic Medicine and Health Promotion Branch, which tracks the flows of both humans (as travelers) and animals (as they are imported or exported), and its director, Dr. Nina Marano, is a veterinarian. He adds that during an outbreak of rabies in the 1990s, state agencies worked together to stem the tide of the disease—a response he views as an "example of the successful alignment of priorities and action among the myriad agencies responsible for human and animal health."
However, his study found these instances to be the exception rather than the norm.
"Although each agency's institutionalized habits of thought and action may have been relatively well-adapted to addressing the diseases that traditionally concerned each organization," Jerolmack writes, "they constrain members from building the inter-organizational and interdisciplinary bridges required to manage the latest 'hybrid' diseases."

subset: commoncrawl


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Much as Richard Burr has underperformed in the view of many, so too is Democrat Richard Blumenthal having more trouble than expected to shake Republican Linda McMahon in the Connecticut Senate race.
And while it is Rasmussen's second consecutive single-digit gap that inspires this post, Quinnipiac also has it at 10, a long way from the D+41 of January.
So yes, Rasmussen had it at +7 last month, but now it's +9 after the leaners are included: Blumenthal 53, McMahon 44 (MoE 4.5). For some races, an 84% chance that the frontrunner is ahead wouldn't be newsworthy or interesting at all. But again, back in January the matchup was off the scale at Blumenthal 58, McMahon 34.
15 points is a long way for a race to swing. Does McMahon have another 9 in her to tie it up? Those last 9 will be much harder to get than the last 15 (or even the first 31 from Quinnipiac's +41 to +10 swing), because she's already won the primary and now has to battle Blumenthal head to head.
Plus, if Blumenthal ever shows any actual weakness, a small state like this is ideal for the cash-strapped Democrats to spend on for great leverage. But the fact that we even have to consider that possibility is all it takes to know that McMahon has turned a non-competitive race into one with possibilities for the Republican Party.


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Those Were The Days: How Norman Lear And 'All in the Family' Permanently Changed US Television And Society
"The Office," NBC's critically acclaimed sitcom, has just ended a highly successful run. The show about a group of office workers in Scranton, Pa., was based on a British comedy of the same name. But "The Office" was hardly the first – nor the most significant – American sitcom whose inspiration sprang from across the Atlantic.
In the early 1970s, writer-producer Norman Lear revolutionized American television by creating or co-creating popular, socially conscious comedies like "All in the Family," "Sanford and Son," "Good Times," "Maude" and many others. But it appears that, after more than 40 years, "All in the Family" remains Lear's greatest and most enduring cultural legacy.
The show, based on a British sitcom called "Till Death Us Do Part," told the bittersweet tale of Archie Bunker, an uneducated, working-class bigot in Queens, N.Y., his loving wife Edith (the "dingbat"), his liberal, hippie son-in-law Mike (the "meathead") and his beloved daughter Gloria.
"All in the Family" startled, delighted (and often outraged) audiences by its stark, realistic depiction of blue-collar life, as well as by Archie's unrestrained, sometimes thoughtless prejudice. The show became a huge hit – perhaps the most popular program in U.S. television history – and is now accorded a lofty position in American culture shared by the likes of Mark Twain, Eugene O'Neill and Tennessee Williams.
But, at its core, the show was essentially about a loving family struggling to survive in a rapidly changing world – using such topics as race, war, sex, politics and women's rights as a point of reference for an audience hungry for entertainment mixed with substance and innovation.
International Business Times spoke with a media expert to sort out the popularity and legacy of "All in the Family."
Dr. Lance Strate is professor of communication and media studies and associate chair for graduate studies at Fordham University in New York.
IB TIMES: What do you attribute the enduring popularity of "All in the Family" to?
STRATE: "All in the Family" perfectly captured the zeitgeist of the early 1970s, a period that most people think of as still being part of "The Sixties."
As much as we go on about the polarized nature of contemporary U.S. politics and society, no other time was so very harshly defined by what was known as the "generation gap"-- the conflict between the Baby Boomers and what former NBC News anchor Tom Brokaw [later] called the "Greatest Generation."
Politics was part of the divide, as the civil rights movement built up steam over the course of the 1960s and the anti-war movement caught fire later in the decade, but it was the social and cultural chasm that really characterized this era.
The Baby Boomers grew up with affluence and looked for generosity, while their parents grew up with the Great Depression and a sense of insecurity. They clung to family and community for survival, which often meant depending on members of the same ethnic group, religion, and race, while excluding others, and this reinforced the natural human tendency towards bias and prejudice, while their children grew up without such constraints, fully embracing the ideals of freedom and equality.
The "Greatest Generation" were told that they were all heroes, but their children weren't buying it, and saw themselves as trying to save a world that was messed up by the older generation. Their parents had fought the good fight in the Second World War, and believed that they were doing the same in taking on communism, but their children saw them as a bunch of warmongers.
While their parents relied on traditional values and mores to get them through difficult times, the Baby Boomers had the luxury to be open and progressive.
And even small cultural differences were magnified, as the men of the Greatest Generation favored military crew-cuts, while their sons let their hair grow long in a manner their parents viewed as feminine. The Baby Boomers listened to rock music and wouldn't be caught dead with an album in their collections from one of the big bands or crooners like Frank Sinatra. And as Marshall McLuhan observed, the Baby Boomers said "cool" where their parents liked to say "hot."
My point is "All in the Family" captured this moment in our history perfectly, and all credit is due to Lear, the writers, and the actors, especially Carroll O'Connor, Jean Stapleton, Sally Struthers and Rob Reiner.
IB TIMES: Was "All in the Family" an immediate hit, or did it take a while to find an audience?
STRATE: It caught on pretty quickly, and it certainly was well-promoted -- but that included prominent warnings about its content being offensive, which, of course, served to attract a big audience.
In those days, very little on television was offensive, and controversial content, such as the "Smothers Brothers Show" waded into, tended to get you canceled, not celebrated.
IB TIMES: Did "All in the Family" initially trigger a lot of criticism, protests, threats of boycotts, etc.? Or is this an exaggeration?
STRATE: It was controversial, yes, especially at first, but everyone quickly adjusted to it, as I think it was widely recognized for its honesty. O'Connor's brilliant and sensitive portrayal of Archie Bunker made the program more balanced than it otherwise would have been.
IB TIMES: Would "All in the Family" have worked as well as a drama series, given all the serious topics it dealt with?
STRATE: I don't think so. The program emphasized our ability to laugh at our own foibles, and comedy is, after all, about survival, about just getting by.
And it helped to balance the drama and tragedy that we all saw on the news and read in the papers day after day after day.
IB TIMES: Do you look at "The Honeymooners" as a kind of precursor to "All in the Family"? That is, even though "The Honeymooners" did not deal directly with social issues, Ralph and Alice Kramden lived in grim poverty and frequently argued (in contrast with the bright, middle-class lifestyles of many other 1950s shows)?
STRATE: I would agree that there are similarities, and that "All in the Family," as innovative as it seems, in some ways retrieved aspects of "The Honeymooners" and similar shows of that era, such as "Amos'n Andy," "The Goldbergs" and "Car 54, Where Are You?"
These programs were set in urban areas and depicted working-class lifestyles, which is why I wouldn't describe "The Honeymooners" lifestyle as "grim poverty" as it depicted an exaggerated version of blue-collar Brooklyn.
IB TIMES: Lear reportedly wanted the public to dislike Archie Bunker -- but the audience loved Archie, even if they disagreed with some of his views. In this respect, do you think Lear's "experiment" backfired?
STRATE: A large segment of the audience was predisposed to sympathize with Archie Bunker's conservative views, and would have tuned out if he had been portrayed as a complete fool. So while the positive reception for that character came as a surprise to many, and an unintended consequence of Lear's experiment, I think on the whole it was beneficial.
The Baby Boomers faulted their parents for stereotyping others, but we were not immune from that tendency ourselves and stereotyped "the older generation" -- and the humanized portrayal of Archie Bunker broke free of that vicious cycle. In this, I think Lear's inspiration exceeded his intentions.
IB TIMES: Prior to Lear, in the 1960s, did U.S. TV shows generally shun dealing with real-world issues, like Vietnam, drugs, racism, civil rights. If so, why? What were they afraid of?
STRATE: Yes, for the most part they did, and their main fear was that advertisers would pull out. Television networks and stations make their money by selling advertising time, and if advertisers do not want to be associated with controversial views, or if controversy results in poor ratings, profits decline.
"All in the Family" was instrumental in demonstrating that dealing with real-world issues in an honest and open manner can also serve as an effective vehicle for commercial advertising.
IB TIMES: Why do you think CBS – already the most powerful and successful TV network – took a risk with such a daring, provocative and controversial offering like "All in the Family"?
STRATE: CBS had actually run into some trouble with advertisers, because while they were pulling in the largest audiences, advertisers shifted their focus to demographics, and CBS's popularity was not with the highly coveted young adult market.
Airing "All in the Family" was part of their strategy to shift their image away from being the rural, country, hick network, into something more hip and current.
IB TIMES: Archie Bunker used many racial and other types of epithets, like coon, spade, spook, jigaboo, jungle bunny, spic, fag, queer, Hebe, Mick, Polack, chink, Ay-rab, Jap, etc. Had U.S. television audiences ever heard such words on the air before? Did it shock the public?
STRATE: Of course they had heard those words before; they were part of the vernacular of the time. So in a sense, it was not all that shocking, except for the context, because the epithets were rarely if ever heard on television. So it was a little bit shocking, and a little bit titillating, but in the main it contributed to the program's aura of honesty and authenticity.
IB TIMES: But Archie, as best as I can recall, never used the N-word (although some black characters like George Jefferson and Sammy Davis Jr. did). Why did the writers forbid Archie from spewing that particular epithet, when he freely used so many others?
STRATE: Given Norman Lear's liberal orientation, the N-word was a bridge too far. There was simply too much hatred associated with that word. It wasn't until rap music arrived and became popular that the taboo about the N-word, which obviously still exists and is used, was loosened at all.
IB TIMES: Archie was also anti-Catholic, often making fun of the pope, nuns and the church. But was this realistic, given that white, working-class New York City – and especially Queens -- was overwhelmingly Catholic at that time? And that many of Archie's friends, lodge-members, bar pals, etc., seemed to be Catholic?
STRATE: No, that was unrealistic and a major disconnect regarding "All in the Family."
As you point out, especially in the context of New York City, the character of Archie Bunker was very much representative of white Catholic males of that generation, and the fact that O'Connor himself was of Irish Catholic descent contributed to that feeling.
It wasn't until the 1980 presidential election that that demographic became clearly identified as the "Reagan Democrats." But Lear was aiming at Middle America, the mainstream audience, and wanted to make Archie Bunker representative of the majority, and therefore Protestant.
He did accurately portray Bunker as not having a car, however, which is not at all unusual for a New Yorker, but interpreted as a sign of poverty by folks living elsewhere. As for the Catholic connection, it was also downplayed in regard to Rob Reiner's character, Bunker's son-in-law Michael Stivic, who was often subjected to derogatory remarks on account of his ethnicity, being Polish.
And there is also a sense in which the character, especially as brought to life by Reiner, came across as Jewish in many ways.
But creating a Catholic-Jewish dynamic would have made the characters much less mainstream, and entirely blunted the generational basis of the conflict, which was the whole point of the show.
IB TIMES: In 1972, almost two years after "All in the Family" began broadcasting, Richard Nixon won re-election in a landslide. Does this suggest that Archie Bunker represented the majority view?
STRATE: The "Silent Majority" as Nixon put it, yes. But keep in mind that his landslide amounted to 60 percent of the popular vote, so the electorate was still quite split and Democratic challenger George McGovern's campaign had been a bit of a disaster for various reasons, some of which later resulted in Nixon's own downfall.
And, of course, Nixon was not all that popular among the youth, voters and non-voters alike. But for that silent majority, Archie Bunker represented their sense of discomfort and consternation with all the social, cultural, and political upheaval that the nation was experiencing. It was the sense that, as Bob Dylan put it, "something is happening here but you don't know what it is," and the feeling that someone needs to stop it or at least slow it down.
IB TIMES: After about five seasons, "All in the Family" seemed to run out of gas -- Nixon was out of office, the Vietnam War was over and U.S. society had drastically changed since the 1960s. Why did the show go on for another four seasons when it had little left to say?
STRATE: It was popular, it was profitable, and commerce trumps art for the most part on television, which is why such programs often get stretched out in this way. But in all fairness, along with the lure of success, I think Lear and his colleagues felt that with this platform, they had a responsibility to continue to express their progressive views.
IB TIMES: By the early 1980s, Ronald Reagan (a favorite of Archie Bunker) was president and it seemed TV shied away from political and provocative programming. Did this reflect a kind of backlash against Lear and "All in the Family"?
STRATE: I don't think it was so much a backlash as a change in the spirit of the times. During the sixties and into the seventies, relevance was emphasized. Reagan introduced what I believe film critic Pauline Kael called the "politics of bliss."
Vietnam was over, struggles for equality continued but the basic principles were no longer in contention, and Watergate was a thing of the past. Social and political issues receded in importance as the economy took center stage.
IB TIMES: I have heard some people say that "All in the Family" was "left-wing propaganda for the masses." Do you think this is a fair assessment?
STRATE: When people hear the word "propaganda," they attach all kinds of negative connotations to it, which is why we don't use the word to refer to the American Revolution, we just talk about "pamphlets" like Thomas Paine's "Common Sense" instead.
So in that extreme sense of political indoctrination and psychological manipulation, no it is not fair.
But in a more neutral sense, yes, Norman Lear was quite clear that the program was expressing a particular point of view, one that we would identify as "liberal" within the American political spectrum, but not "left-wing" in the sense of being extreme and out of the mainstream. Researchers and scholars have long established that all forms of television programming and popular culture in general, have an inherent point of view. They all communicate a set of values, beliefs, attitudes, and opinions, and in doing so promote either the "conservative" view that all is fine the way it is, or the "liberal" view that change is needed.
This happens whether the creators of the program intend it to or not. So Lear was just a bit more self-conscious about it, and a bit more above-board about what he was trying to do with the program.
But let's be clear that more than anything else, it had to be able to attract a mass audience, and you can't do that by attacking or contradicting what those people already think and believe to any great extent.
IB TIMES: "All in the Family" was based on a 1960s British sitcom called "Till Death Us Do Part," which was far darker and grimmer than its American version. Do American audiences need its programming to be softer and more sugar-coated than the British public?
STRATE: Absolutely. We are sentimental. We sympathize with the underdog, having been the underdog as rebels fighting the "evil" British Empire once upon a time.
We believe that love conquers all. We believe in redemption, being a fundamentally religious people. You can call it sugar-coated, and British television has generally been of better quality than American, but I think British comedy can be somewhat mean-spirited, the different versions of "The Office" being a good example.
IB TIMES: Could "All in the Family" be made today? Would there be an audience for such a program now?
STRATE: I think the descendants of "All in the Family" can be seen on cable television, in programs like "The Newsroom," "Shameless" and "The Sopranos." That's where Norman Lear would be working today.
IB TIMES: Norman Lear produced many TV shows, but "All in the Family" is perhaps his greatest and most popular creation. What do you think Lear's legacy is?
STRATE: Norman Lear's legacy will most certainly be "All in the Family," with that alone he has earned his place in history for producing a series that was both culturally significant and an artistic achievement. And he will be remembered for pushing the craft of television production forward, from pure entertainment to a form that could be both enjoyable and socially relevant. His legacy is in the understanding that, just like literature and film, television fiction can be used to say something of immediate and lasting importance about our culture, and about the human condition.
© Copyright IBTimes 2024. All rights reserved.


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Raspberry tart
What's the meaning of the phrase 'Raspberry tart'?
What's the origin of the phrase 'Raspberry tart'?
'Raspberry tart' is an example of Cockney rhyming slang. It is the source of the term 'raspberry' - the derisive sound, imitative of a fart, made pressing the lips together and 'blowing a raspberry'.
'Raspberry' has become accepted into polite language in circumstances where 'fart' might be thought unsuitable (in a manner like the term 'berk', which derives from 'Berkshire hunt' - a rhyming slang term for what is often referred to just as 'the C word'). These are presumably both acceptable as they follow the rhyming slang pattern of adopting the non-rhyming word from a slang phrase as the synonym for the original. To anyone unfamiliar with the rhyming slang origin the words 'raspberry' or 'berk' could cause no offence - similarly 'ginger', 'hampton' and 'khyber'.
This device allowed British comedians of the post-WWII period to get risqué material past the BBC censors. At that time the BBC was especially vigilant at censoring any script that might be thought to contain explicit material, as is made evident by reading their Green Book of unacceptable language. Spike Milligan, in his Goon Show scripts, made something of a game at sneaking in material which the audience would understand as a double-entendre but which the censors might miss; for example, their 1978 recording The Raspberry Song:
(Bloodnok) Don't tell me he's come to stay
(Secombe) Let the wardens here him say
Fruit's in season! Let's be merry! Apples, plums and the old raspberry
Everything is fresh today
(Bloodnok) Don't let him get near me, please!(Secombe) Every Friday night when work is done
He doesn't waste a minute
To the prison warden he hurries 'round where he sings just like a linnet
To hear him blow a melody it's great, you can't deny it
And if you've nothing else to do,
we'd like the screws to try it
(Bloodnok) No more, please!
Milligan later collaborated with Ronnie Barker on the Two Ronnies sketches The Phantom Raspberry Blower of Old London Town. In addition to the part-writing of the script he was credited with the sound effects: "Raspberries Professionally blown by Spike Milligan."


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10/21/11 | Assignment 7 posted, due 11/20. |
10/21/11 | Assignment 6 posted, due 11/9. |
10/28/11 | Corrected Assignment 5 posted (removed requirement for fixed weights in 1(c) and (d)). |
10/21/11 | Assignment 5 posted, due 10/30. |
10/14/11 | Assignment 4 due date extended to due 10/23. |
10/14/11 | Revised Assignment 4 posted (including testing code, new submission instructions), due 10/21. |
10/14/11 | Assignment 4 posted (including training data), due 10/21. |
10/6/11 | Midterm solutions posted. |
9/9/11 | Assignment 0 solutions and Assignment 2 solutions posted. |
9/9/11 | Assignment 3 posted, due 10/3. |
9/11/11 | Corrected version of Assignment 2 posted (fixes typos in Q2 and Q4(c)). |
9/9/11 | Assignment 2 posted (including training data), due 9/19. |
9/1ish/11 | Assignment 1 posted, due 9/9. |
9/1/11 | submit is not working, due to 194-10 being just a section of 194; for the time being, email your solutions as firstname.lastname.tar.gz or firstname.lastname.zip to Avital at firstname.lastname@example.com. |
8/25/11 | Corrected version of Assignment 0 posted, fixes typos in Q.3. |
8/22/11 | Assignment 0 posted, due 9/2. |
8/16/11 | Discussion sections WILL be held in Week 1, i.e., on Aug 24 before the first class; they will be in 310 Soda instead of the usual rooms. |
[90 -- 100]% [85 -- 90)% [80 -- 85)% [75 -- 80)% [70 -- 75)% [65 -- 70)% [60 -- 65)% [55 -- 60)% [50 -- 55)% [45 -- 50)% [40 -- 45)% [35 -- 40)% [0 -- 35)% |
A course grade of F will be assigned if the midterm or final is skipped.
Reading assignments for each week (to prepare for lecture, or review for assignments) appear here.
Each assignment will include a combination of problems to solve and programs to write and test. Assignments should be turned in using the submit program from an instructional (named or class) account, as described here.
If necessary, solutions to the homework problems can be turned in on paper in the homework box in 283 Soda, or they may be turned in online (e.g., as pdfs produced from LaTeX) using submit, as part of your overall submission.
Except for Assignment 0, which must be done individually, assignments can be done individually or in pairs. (This goes for both problem-solving and programming parts.)
If done in pairs, each partner should be involved in all the work!!
The usual rule about free-riding applies: the more you free-ride, the lower will be your score on the midterm and final.
Discussion of assignments among students is permitted and encouraged, but solutions
and programs may not be copied. I would recommend NOT mixing inter-group discussion
with writing up of solutions or code. See the
EECS Department Policy on Academic Dishonesty
and Kris Pister's policy for further explanation and examples.
Finding solutions on the web: It is becoming increasingly
difficult to give homework problems whose solutions are not already
available in some form on the web. This does not mean that your first
response to any homework is to type the question into Google. The EECS
policy begins "Copying all or part of another person's work, or using
reference material not specifically allowed, are forms of cheating."
For the purposes of this course, the allowed reference materials are
the reading materials listed on the course web page and any additional materials specified in the homework;
in addition, you may use Wikipedia for background reference.
It is a good idea to start your programming assignments as soon as you can; computers have a tendency to go down the night before an assignment is due. There is evidence from past courses that students who start working well before the due date take about one third the time to complete their work compared to students who wait until the last minute. In general, it will be worth your while to spend more time away from the screen thinking about programs than struggling with them on-line.
The class newsgroup is suitable for asking general questions about what the homework questions mean, how the course software works, etc. Do not ask or answer specific questions about homework solutions, e.g., "What's the right answer for number 2?" One of the course GSIs will be checking the newsgroup fairly regularly, but for "official" answers to important questions you might want to email your own GSI directly, AFTER you have checked to see if the question has already been answered on the newsgroup!


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Google inaugurates its super-high-speed Internet service
Kansas City residents now get to try out the Web giant's 1-gigabit-per-second fiber optic Internet service in their homes.
After years in the making, Google announced today that it has started connecting people in Kansas City, Kan., to its ultra high-speed fiber-to-the-home Internet service. Acting as guinea pigs of sorts, these locals will be the first people in the world who get to test out Google's new service and decide whether it lives up to the hype.
When Google first announced its nationwide Google Fiber project in 2010, around 1,100 U.S. towns and cities applied to get in on the deal. When Kansas City won out, Google Access General Manager Kevin Lo said, "new high-speed infrastructure will ultimately be carrying Kansas Citians' data at speeds more than 100 times faster than what most Americans have today."
Now, as the service officially kicks off, Google is making sure that its customers know what to expect. The company's representatives are going door-to-door letting people know their service is on the way and how the installation will work.
Here's more from a blog post by Google Fiber's service delivery director Alana Karen:
We've been working in a few homes over the last few weeks to make sure we can deliver a great experience, and along the way we've thought a lot about what "great" might mean. We want it to take the amount of time we (and you!) think it's going to take. We want to be able to explain what we're doing in easy to understand language, so it makes sense to you and it's not just tech jargon! And of course we're aiming for "one and done" -- one visit, everything working when we leave your home.
Google set up a Web site in August where residents interested in the service could pre-register. The company said at the time that it would prioritize construction of the network in neighborhoods -- so-called "fiberhoods" -- in which residents showed the most interest. The response was huge, within six weeks nearly 90 percent of eligible neighborhoods in Kansas City had signed up for the service.
The 1-gigabit-per-second service will cost customers $70 per month. The fast speeds are available for both uploads and downloads and come with 1 terabyte of data storage and a network box to deliver the service. If customers want to include Fiber TV service, the total comes out to $120, which tends to be a lot cheaper than Google's broadband competitors, such as Time Warner Cable and Comcast.


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WHEN IT COMES to healthy eating, polar bears break all the rules. They eat mostly fat, but they don't get heart disease the way humans would.
Scientists said today in science journal Cell that the reason lies in their genes.
Some speedy evolutionary tricks, particularly in the genes which handle how fats are metabolised and how fats are transported in the blood, have allowed polar bears to survive in the Arctic, scientists said.
And it all happened within the last 500,000 years, after the polar bear split from its cousin, the brown bear, according to research that compared the two animals' genomes.
Scientists found that polar bears are much younger than previously thought, with past estimates of the divergence time between polar and brown bears ranging from 600,000 to five million years ago.
"It's really surprising that the divergence time is so short," said Rasmus Nielsen, a University of California Berkeley professor of integrative biology and of statistics.
"All the unique adaptations polar bears have to the Arctic environment must have evolved in a very short amount of time," he said.
The split
It's unclear what drove polar bear to evolve into a separate group from brown bears, though it happened at a time that coincides with a warm interglacial period that could have encouraged brown bears to venture further north than they had in the past, researchers said.
Then, when conditions cooled again, a group of brown bears may have become isolated and forced to adapt to a snowy and cold new environment.
Polar bears eat mostly seals, which are rich in blubber, and they nurse their young with a milk that is nearly one-third fat.
About half the bears' overall weight is made up of fat, rather than muscle and bone.
In contrast, a healthy person's body fat percentage could range between eight and 35 percent.
"The life of a polar bear revolves around fat," said Eline Lorenzen, a researcher at UC Berkeley and one of the lead authors on the study.
"For polar bears, profound obesity is a benign state," added Lorenzen. "We wanted to understand how they are able to cope with that."
Researchers compared the blood and tissue samples from 79 polar bears from Greenland to 10 brown bears from Sweden, Finland, Glacier National Park in Alaska and the Admiralty, Baranof, and Chichagof (ABC) Islands off the Alaskan coast.
They found one of the most strongly selected genes was APOB, which in mammals encodes the main protein in "bad" cholesterol, known as LDL (low density lipoprotein) and allows it to move from the blood into the cells.
Changes in that gene hint at how the polar bear is able to manage high blood sugar and triglycerides at a level that would be perilous in people.
Scientists on the study, who hailed from Denmark, China and the United States, said one day, the polar bear's digestive secrets could help boost human health in an age of increasing obesity.
"The promise of comparative genomics is that we learn how other organisms deal with conditions that we also are exposed to," said Nielsen.


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Dear Friends,
Welcome to the Raleigh Go Red Luncheon! We're delighted you are here and appreciate your interest in learning how you can advance health, stop heart disease and save women's lives. That's what the American Heart Association's Go Red For Women® movement is all about.
Heart disease isn't just a man's problem. It's a woman's problem, too. In fact, it's the No. 1 killer of women. And, tragically, far too few women realize their risk from this preventable disease. We need to raise women's awareness of their risk and protect our mothers, daughters, sisters, friends and ourselves.
You can help, starting today. Here's how:
First, take charge of your own heart health. Visit your doctor. Know your numbers (learn more at www.GoRedForWomen.org). You can improve your blood pressure, cholesterol and other numbers by making lifestyle changes. You'll be healthier and look and feel better, too.
Second, join the American Heart Association in making it your mission to fight heart disease in women. Help spread the word that heart disease is women's No. 1 killer. Share what you learn today with your family and members of your community. Tell five women you want them to live and we can help stop heart disease in our lifetime.
Third and last, consider making a contribution. Your donation today will make a difference in the lives of women here and across the country. You can help fund local and national Go Red activities that support awareness, research, education and community programs that benefit women.
Thank you again for being here. My hope is that you won't leave today without committing to making a difference by joining the Go Red For Women movement — women everywhere need your help. Only one in five women believes that heart disease is her greatest health threat. We believe reducing risk and preventing heart disease starts with education — and you. There's so much to do, and so much at stake.
With your commitment, we can help women and their families live longer, stronger lives. Thank you for your generous support.
Warm regards, Nancy Brown Chief Executive Officer American Heart Association


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The philosopher Ludwig Wittgenstein once said that nothing is as difficult for people as not deceiving themselves. But while most self-delusions are relatively costless, those relating to investment can come with a hefty price tag.
We delude ourselves for a number of reasons, but one of the principal causes is a need to protect our own egos. So we look for external evidence that supports the myths we hold about ourselves, and we dismiss those facts that are incompatible.
Psychologists call this "confirmation bias" - a tendency to select facts that suit our own internal beliefs. A related ingrained tendency, known as "hindsight bias," involves seeing everything as obvious and predictable after the fact.
These biases, or ways of protecting our egos from reality, are evident among many investors every day and are often encouraged by the media.
Here are seven common manifestations of how investors fool themselves:
- "Everyone could see that market crash coming." Have you noticed how people become experts after the fact? But if "everyone" could see a correction coming, why wasn't "everyone" profiting from it? You don't need forecasts.
- "I only invest in 'blue-chip' companies." People often gravitate to the familiar and to shares they see as solid. But a company's profile and whether or not it is a good investment are not necessarily correlated. Better to diversify.
- "I'm waiting for more certainty." The emotions triggered by volatility are understandable, but acting on those emotions can be counterproductive. Uncertainty goes with investing. Historically, long-term discipline has been rewarded.
- "I know about this industry, so I'm going to buy the stock." People often assume that success in investment requires a specialist's knowledge of a sector. But that information is usually already in the price. Trust the market instead.
- "It was still a good call, but no one saw this coming." Isn't that the point? You can rationalize a stock-specific bet as much as you like, but events or external influences can conspire against you. Spread your risk instead.
- "I'm going to restrict my portfolio to the strongest economies." If an economy performs strongly, that will no doubt be reflected in stock prices. What moves prices is news. And news relates to the unexpected. So work with the market.
- "OK, it was a bad idea, but I don't want to sell at a loss." We can put too much faith in individual stocks, and holding onto a losing bet can mean missing opportunities elsewhere. Portfolio structure affects performance.
This is by no means an exhaustive list. In fact, the capacity for human beings to delude themselves in the world of investment is never-ending.
But overcoming self-deception is not impossible. It just starts with recognizing that, as humans, we are not wired for disciplined investing. We will always find one way or another of rationalizing an emotional reaction to market events.
But that's why even experienced investors engage advisors who know them, and who understand their circumstances, risk appetites, and long-term goals. The role of that advisor is to listen to and acknowledge our very human fears, while keeping us in the plans we committed to at our most lucid and logical.
We will always try to fool ourselves. But to quote a piece of folk wisdom, the essence of self-discipline is to do the important thing rather than the urgent thing.


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Show All Answers
(1) Fifty (50) percent of the roof area, as measured in plan view; (2) Fifty (50) percent or more of the exterior walls of a building as measured contiguously around the building envelop; or (3) Any portion of an exterior wall facing a public street, but not an alley.
In order for a wall not to be considered a demolished wall, the wall shall meet the following minimum standards:
A. The wall shall retain studs or other structural elements, the exterior wall finish and fully framed and sheathed roof above that portion of remaining building to which such wall is attached; B. The wall shall not be covered or otherwise concealed by a wall that is proposed to be placed in front of the retained wall; and Each part of the retained exterior walls shall be connected contiguously and without interruption to every other part of the retained exterior walls.
Work on an affected structure may not be divided into two (2) or more separate projects for the purpose of evading or attempting to evade the requirements of this definition. Any two (2) or more projects on an affected structure, undertaken within any twenty-four-consecutive month period shall be treated as a single project for the purpose of determining whether a project constitutes a demolition. Link to the Municipal Code
Yes. Fill out the Historic Preservation Demolition Review Application (PDF) and submit to the Planning & Building Department by email: firstname.lastname@example.com .


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From screenwriter Brian Nelson (HARD CANDY, 30 DAYS OF NIGHT) --
The other day I had a conversation with a friend of mine who works in Craft Services. It was an unsettling talk. While this friend has been quite supportive of me all through the strike, during this talk he kept raising points that felt more like what people on the other side would say. "Well, it'll take a long time to undo all the damage ... the moment there was a DGA deal, why didn't the WGA just jump on that? ... It seemed like they were a lot more willing to talk to the DGA than to you guys, and I wonder why." I took a while and patiently responded to all these points, but it struck me that every time I'd respond, he didn't really acknowledge it but came back with another bone to pick.
What it brought home to me was that while my friend was definitely on our side because he felt that the corporate bosses were out to screw us all, he still was very wary of the WGA. Now that the WGA didn't need him so overtly on our side, he felt freer to express a lot of the frustration that BTL people must still feel.
Even though the strike is over, many of our sisters and brothers below the line aren't working yet. The relief that much of the town feels at working again can't be allowed to obscure this fact. My friend was right: it's indisputably true that a lot of work will be needed to make up for the hardships that people across all unions have endured.
When you're out of work, naturally any party that feels like it might have contributed to the problem remains suspect. But the difference between the WGA and the AMPTP is that we can and will maintain a dialogue with our BTL colleagues.
That dialogue can take the form of the benefits still being staged to strengthen the Industry Support Fund. And that dialogue can take the form of lobbying for the underpricing bill currently in the California State Senate -- which helps all unions by making sure that our work isn't traded between corporate subsidiaries at less than its fair market value.
But just as importantly, that dialogue needs to take the form of simple honest exchanges about what's happened and what's still happening in this town. The success of everyone's next negotiation will depend in large part on how we all view the last few months, and how well we maintain the lines of communication newly created between motion picture artisans used to laboring in isolation and sometimes mistrust of each other.
If we are truly championing the idea of a United Hollywood, then we need to be alive to the simmering resentments that may bubble up from other trades now that solidarity may not feel like the watchword of our every hour.
Thanks for listening --
Brian Nelson
Moving Forward: The Need for Post-Strike Dialogue with Other Unions
Posted by United Hollywood at 3/04/2008 10:20:00 AM
Labels: Member Opinion Pieces
8 comments:
- stuiec said...
There is a MASSIVE amount of work to do. Affiliating WGA West to the AFL-CIO (as the WGA East is) would help, because that would give WGAw access to the Los Angeles County Labor Federation and make it much easier to get an entertainment industry Central Labor Council up and running.
I note that the WGA Industry Strike Support Fund got a rather late start and has raised only a miniscule fraction of the wages lost by non-WGA industry workers. I also note that the Actors Fund has disbursed twice what the WGA ISS Fund has raised, and four times what the WGA fund has disbursed. That displays a lack of foresight on the part of the WGA.
I suggest that the WGA and the other unions in Hollywood ramp up the fundraising for strike support funds ENORMOUSLY. Imagine the leverage it would give union negotiators (from whichever union) if they could show management that the workers throughout the industry were in a position to weather the financial strains of a strike of three, four, five or six months.
And the other unions and guilds in Hollywood need to know that the WGA will unequivocally support them in whatever ways are open to them. Work-to-rule slowdowns, refusal to cross picket lines, sickouts (as in Steve Carrell's famous "enlarged testicles") -- whatever can be legally done to help a fellow union shut down production and create leverage for its negotiators, the WGA should commit to doing.
It's also long past due time to resolve the feud between the WGA and IATSE over reality and animation jurisdiction. The WGA has to focus on organizing the unorganized writers in these areas, not on poaching members from IATSE or competing with IATSE over a particular shop. That sort of division and infighting only plays into the hands of management. - 3/04/2008 01:13:00 PM
- Luzid said...
stuiec said...
...a lot that needed to be said.
I'm concerned at the quiet that's descended on UH since the strike ended. There's not much talk of the kind of solidarity necessary to ensure the studios don't continue to hold an economic pistol to the heads of those collaborating to create entertainment.
I hope to see more activity here regarding solidarity issues and tactics as SAG's contract end draws near. It's important work! - 3/04/2008 04:14:00 PM
- Ashley Gable said...
StuieC: Remind me again how much the AMPTP Industry Support Fund has raised for BTL workers hurt during the strike? Oh, right. There isn't an AMPTP Industry Support Fund.
Despite the fact that the AMPTP refused to negotiate with writers from July 2007 through half of January 2008. - 3/04/2008 05:31:00 PM
- United Hollywood said...
Luzid -
Thanks for your comment. We're moving to a new site with a forum for union voices. We're reaching out to SAG leadership and membership this week for posts on the SAG issues. Come back soon.
Tom - 3/04/2008 06:25:00 PM
- stuiec said...
ashley gable: "StuieC: Remind me again how much the AMPTP Industry Support Fund has raised for BTL workers hurt during the strike? Oh, right. There isn't an AMPTP Industry Support Fund."
You win the prize for the biggest non sequitur in the short history of the blogosphere.
You recall from your recent experience how a strike works, yes? Union employees agree to forego wages in order to force management to do without their labor. A key objective of a strike is making it impossible for management to continue money-making operations.
The longer the employees can hold out without pay, the more leverage they have at the bargaining table. A large strike fund doesn't only affect the later phases of a strike: it provides leverage BEFORE the strike starts, if management sees that the workers have the resources to prove that a strike vote isn't a bluff, and to call any bluff that management might try to run.
It isn't incumbent on management to ease the burden of a strike on workers -- the strikers or the non-strikers. It plays into their hands to let them point to the strike as the source of economic woes for non-strikers. A much smarter play is to prepare ahead so that their divide-and-conquer tactics can't find a toehold among the workers -- the strikers or the non-strikers.
As for management refusing to negotiate, that unfortunately merely proves that the WGA was not in as powerful a position as its leaders thought. The WGA could not deny the AMPTP the luxury of staying away from the bargaining table. (I could also point out that the refusal to negotiate was not all one sided.)
Did you participate in a work-to-rule slowdown last summer, where you delivered only the bare minimum under your contractual obligations and only at the last possible minute before your deadlines? Did you help slow the delivery of scripts in order to deny the AMPTP companies a stockpile of inventory to keep in production for weeks after the strike was called? I seem to recall anecdotes about WGA writers rushing scripts in to beat the Oct. 31 deadline, looking to make that last-minute buck for themselves at the expense of their union's bargaining position.
Please don't complain about how the AMPTP didn't play fair. In a labor dispute, the other side will only play fair to the extent that it's forced to -- either by the law, or by the strength of your bargaining position. From time to time they may surprise you by behaving like human beings with integrity, but planning on them doing so is naive. - 3/04/2008 10:04:00 PM
- Luzid said...
@ Tom:
Will this new site be accessible to WGA members only, or will the public who supports them (even when, in their view, it makes bad deals) still be welcome? - 3/04/2008 10:07:00 PM
- United Hollywood said...
Luzid -
All will be welcome at the new site. Supporters. Skeptics. Outright enemies. Goal is informed debate, not agreement.
Check out the Union Forum link (forum.unitedhollywood.com). You can become a member, start groups and discussions, upload videos and otherwise make your opinions known.
Tom - 3/04/2008 11:51:00 PM
- deuddersun said...
You know, I did a lot of posts at my place supporting the strike and amazingly, one day, I received an e-mail from a guy who does my job, but in Europe. The long and the short of it is, there are no real entertainment unions in Europe! He asked my help in speaking to the IA about organizing there and I promised him I would do what I could. I have a post coming out on this shortly, followed by a letter to the President of our so-called "International".
Anyway, the point is this. The strike produced a lot of good in a lot of places. Wouldn't it be nice to know that no matter where a production originated, or where it went, there would be Union representation there to level the field?
This is how precious our Unions and Guilds really are, that people in other parts of the world envy us. Let us lead then. Let us join together and show a unified front! It takes all of us to make a picture! It takes all of us to make a stand.
There are five primary unions invovled here. WGA, DGA, USA, Teamsters, and IATSE.
Five fingers...what?
Five fingers...what??
Five fingers...WHAT?
One FIST!
Band of the Hand.
See you at the new spot.
d. - 3/05/2008 11:46:00 AM


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Events and Media Tours Planned in New York, Los Angeles, Philadelphia, Washington, D.C. and Atlanta
Las Vegas, Nevada – The Ultimate Fighting Championship® announced today that it will celebrate Black History Month by taking part in a series of events and appearances nationwide throughout the month of February.
UFC® stars such as flyweight champion Demetrious Johnson, Uriah Hall, Rashad Evans, Anthony Johnson, Tyron Woodley and Phil Davis will visit multiple cities across the United States to take part in community and charitable events, media tours and other appearances. The tour will visit New York, Los Angeles, Philadelphia, Washington, D.C., and Atlanta.
FOX Sports commentator Karyn Bryant will also participate.
The following cities will be visited throughout the celebration:
• Monday, Feb. 24 – New York City with Demetrious Johnson & Uriah Hall
• Tuesday, Feb. 25 – Philadelphia with Demetrious Johnson & Uriah Hall
• Wednesday, Feb. 26 – Washington, D.C. with Rashad Evans & Anthony Johnson
• Thursday, Feb. 27 – Atlanta with Rashad Evans & Anthony Johnson
• Friday, Feb. 28 – Los Angeles with Phil Davis & Tyron Woodley
**Talent subject to change
UFC.com/BHM will also be home to exclusive content chronicling the coast-to-coast celebration. More information on the tour, including schedules and stops in each city, will be announced in the days to come.
Jamahal Hill Talks UFC 300 Main Event


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Vatican City, Jun 26, 2014 / 06:34 am
In an audience with aid organizations assisting Oriental churches, Pope Francis explained that peace is a gift from God, which can be regained by offering hope through our solidarity with those who suffer.
"Those who would cultivate the plant of peace must never forget that God alone gives the growth. True peace, the peace which the world cannot give, is a gift to us from Jesus Christ," the Pope observed in his June 26 audience with members of the Reunion of Aid Agencies for the Oriental Churches.
"For all the grievous attacks it endures today, peace can always flourish again."
Pope Francis assured the assembly of his closeness to the churches of the East, explaining that their tears, fears and hopes are both his as well as those of the rest of the Catholic Church.
Speaking of his recent pilgrimage to the Holy Land and the invocation for peace held in the Vatican earlier this month with the Israeli and Palestinian presidents, the Pope stated that the olive tree they planted together "is a symbol of that peace which is secure and enduring only because it is cultivated by many hands."
"I am grateful that you continue to 'make peace grow' through charity, which is the ultimate aim of all your organizations," he continued.
"With unity and charity Christ's disciples strive to be peacemakers everywhere, in all peoples and communities, and to overcome persistent forms of discrimination, starting with those based on religion."
Members of the Oriental churches, he said, are the first among "those called to be peacemakers," together with their pastors.
"Hoping at times against all hope, remaining in the place of their birth where the Gospel of the incarnate Son of God was first proclaimed, may they experience the blessedness reserved to those who are peacemakers: 'they will be called children of God,'" the pontiff prayed.
Going on, the Bishop of Rome voiced his hope that Christians in the Oriental churches would always find support in the universal Church, and never lose their conviction that "the power of love can halt the fire of arms, hatred and vengeance."
"Their tears and their anguish are ours, as well as their hope! We can express this through our solidarity, if it is one which is concrete and effective, capable of ensuring that the international community upholds the rights of individuals and peoples."
Expressing the solidarity of the Catholic Church with those suffering alongside their priests and bishops in Syria and Iraq, the pontiff also assured the Church's closeness to "the beloved people" of Ukraine and Romania in the midst of their ongoing "critical situation."
He then encouraged the organizations to "continue your generous efforts" in assisting the people in those areas.
"Your works of relief and assistance in nations most affected by these crises respond to basic needs," the Pope noted, "particularly of those who are powerless and most vulnerable, as well as the many young people tempted to leave their homeland."
Concluding his address, the Roman Pontiff encouraged participants to actively pursue the goals set during their last plenary session, including the training of young persons and teachers, and uniting them with their interest for the family, particularly in light of the upcoming Synod, which will reflect on this theme.
"The Holy Family of Nazareth, 'which knew anxiety ... as well as the pain of persecution, emigration and hard daily labor,'" he said, "teaches us 'to trust the Father, to imitate Christ and to let ourselves be guided by the Holy Spirit.'"


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Scientists from the institut polytechnique Grenoble INP and the Centre Technique du Papier have developed a novel new product so gratuitous, it almost seems necessary: a silver-crystal coated wallpaper that can block neighbors from freeloading off your Wi-Fi network. The silver crystals are arranged in such a way that they are able to block certain wireless frequencies, not least of which is the same frequency as a WiFI router.
But, what about just setting up a password-protected network?
I don't know. You most certainly can—and should—do that. But if, for whatever reason, an open network is what you desire, this silver snowflake-speckled wall-covering will have your back. Unless you have windows. They're still working on a clear coating with protective power equal to that of the paper.
Also, there will of course be somebody out there who will buy this, someone who both delights in a room covered floor-to-ceiling in metallic snowflakes and believes said remediation is superior to setting a password (which is free, mind you—this wallpaper, when it's released in 2013, will cost about as much as mid-grade conventional wallpaper). Who is this person?
Has there not been an unusual amount of weird wallpaper news lately? [DVICE via SlashDot]


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The first half wasn't so pretty, but the second half was something to write home about, as Eastern Mennonite used a 53-18 second stanza to roll to an 80-49 victory at rival Bridgewater Wednesday night.
Neither team played well to start the game, as there were nearly more fouls than points over the first few minutes. Bridgewater finally broke off a 9-9 tie with an 8-0 run to go up 17-9.
BC led by as many as nine before the Runnin Royals regrouped and trimmed it down. R.J. Sims (Fort Washington, MD/Friendly) sliced to the hoop for a layup to end the half, cutting the Eagles' lead to four at 31-27.
The momentum continued into the second, as EMU scored the first five to skip in front for the first time since the opening minutes, 32-31. The two teams traded leads before the Runnin Royals scored eight straight, with a Randell Smith (Woodbridge, VA/Garfield) jumper pushing the lead to 42-37, and forcing Bridgewater to call a timeout.
The breather didn't slow down EMU's fastbreak, as the men scored another eight in row, all in transition, forcing yet another timeout at 50-37. The Royals added another bucket to cap an 18-0 run, with Smith getting eight during the streak. The sophomore added his third triple to finish off a 21-2 spurt before getting a sub.
The Royals weren't done with their 55-39 lead, as they continued to force turnovers and crash the offensive boards. The lead was as high as 34 as Eastern Mennonite thoroughly dominated the second and ran away with the 80-49 win.
EMU shot 60% in the decisive final period while holding Bridgewater to 23% and winning the half 53-18. The Royals forced 10 turnovers and had a 28-15 command of the boards in the frame.
For the game, the men out-shot the Eagles 50% to 31% and forced 20 turnovers. EMU did struggle from the free throw line, hitting just 13-of-27 attempts.
Smith finished with a career best 11 points, all during the decisive second half surge. Sims led EMU with 12 points and four offensive boards, but was one of five men in double figures.
Owen Longacre (Telford, PA/Christopher Dock) had 11 points and seven rebounds, while Adam Burroughs (Roanoke, VA/Northside) put in 11 with four steals and three assists. Junior Andrew Thorne (Front Royal, VA/Skyline) was good for 10 points, nine rebounds and three steals.
Bridgewater freshman Aaron Adams (Ellicott City, MD/Centennial) led all players with 16 points. Point guard Ronnie Thomas (Roanoke, VA/Patrick Henry) scored 14 but also had six turnovers. Ed Reddick (Virginia Beach, VA/Kellam) had a game high 10 rebounds.
The Royals snap a five-game ODAC losing streak with the win, improving to 2-5 in the conference and 7-9 overall. BC dropped their tenth in a row, slipping to 4-12 and 1-6. Eastern Mennonite has now won five games in a row in the series between the two.
EMU will try to springboard off the win when they host Randolph on Saturday. Game time in Yoder Arena is 7:00pm.


text: This groundbreaking new book expands the concept of food gardening to embrace the whole garden. The new food garden is centered around the intensive vegetable garden, but doesn't stop there. It puts hedges, ponds, pathways, arbors, lawns, roofs, and walls to work as additional growing space for food plants. Fruit and nut trees, bush fruit, edible vines, perennial vegetables, herbs, annual crops, aquatic plants, weeds, and edible wild plants are used to increase the quantity and variety of foods available with little extra work. The author doesn't just look upon the garden as a place to grow food, however; it is a place to be lived in and used, so he also concentrates on making it beautiful, comfortable, and efficient. He describes practical ways in which the garden can help us to reduce our impact on the earth. Included is advice on making the garden pay for itself, or even to provide an income. The author's ultimate aim is to change the way we approach the garden so that it feeds, heals, and nurtures us. The productive garden should be an integral part of the home, and growing food should be a part of everyday life.


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Cramer Says Recession by Christmas if Fiscal Cliff Not Resolved
CNBC's Jim Cramer predicted a possible recession by Christmas if lawmakers didn't step up and make some sort of deal in regards to the looming fiscal cliff. His prediction came during an Nov. 11 appearance on NBC's "Meet the Press."
"We can gift wrap a recession by Christmas. We can set it right into place without some agreement," Cramer told "Meet the Press" host David Gregory. He attributed that week's stock market drop to that same lack of certainty.
The "Mad Money" host went on to elaborate on the major issues facing businesses if lawmakers fail to address the fiscal cliff. Cramer said he's personally talked to many different people and found that businesses "don't want to hire" because with a "series of unknowns who can take a chance? Who can take a chance with Washington? Better to scale back retail, restaurant, industrial, bank. Fire people! That's the solution to the fiscal cliff."
The fiscal cliff is the combination of $7 trillion in tax increases and spending cuts over 10 years that is set to begin Jan. 1, 2013 unless something is done to prevent it. According to Cramer, until a deal is made businesses will choose to "scale back" and "fire people." Back in August, Marketplace reported that defense contractors might have to lay off workers if the fiscal cliff isn't resolved.
Cramer also said that CEOs have no choice but to work side by side with Washington to create a solution. "Their businesses are going to go down, their stocks are going to go down. This is what they care about." Cramer predicted that stocks and compensation will drop if a deal is not made in Washington by the end of the year.


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Scott D. Parker
(I was going to have a nice, long take on "Skyfall," the newest James Bond movie mainly as a different outlook to Jay's fantastic post of Thursday, but I have run out of time. On the whole, I agree with many of his points, but, like many comic book superheroes, Bond is ageless and just rolls with the decades. I like that, but I also like the idea of a beginning, middle, and end. For that, truly, we'll need a Bond version of "The Dark Knight Returns." Instead, I'll give you my shorter take (taken from an email to a friend) on the film. Then, so y'all don't feel short changed, I'm posting my October 2010 review of the Bond novel, Devil May Care, by Sebastian Faulks. I've left the text of the review as is.)
I really enjoyed the film. It took from Brosnan's The World is Not Enough (trying to kill M; explosion in MI6) and Goldeneye (former spy turned bad guy), but, THANKFULLY, didn't have a plan for world domination. Just a simple murder. I half expected M to get captured and tortured (a la Colonel Sun, the first non-Fleming book written pre-John Gardner). I loved the in jokes (we don't use exploding pens (Goldeneye); the Goldfinger car), and the obvious imagery of the Asten Marten being blown to bits. Loved the new flinty repartee with the new Q.
Taken as a whole, I think this trilogy of films establishes a new "origin" story for the 21st Century Bond. At beginning of CR, nothing is like every other former Bond film. And Craig, over 3 movies, gets to get back to where all pre-Craig films start/stop (the martini, the introduction, the quips). So, with SF, you end with Bond, coming into the office, chit-chatting w/Moneypenny, going through the padded door, and talking to M for his next case (BTW, saw "Mallory-as-M" a mile away). And, in the closing of the film, we finally get Craig through the gun barrel + music, and the credits roll comes complete with "James Bond Will Return." And, with that, we are on our way to the next 50 years, having come full circle. In fact, and I'll need to watch all 3 Craig films to make sure, I think Craig/Bond was actually lighter/funnier in this one than Craig has ever been. Note the scene when the henchman, in the komodo dragon pit, picks up Bond's gun. Bond actually smiles and says "Good luck with that."
There were lots of homages to other films in this movie. Well, homages as *I* took them. Bond, M, and "Alfred" prepping for an assault = Saving Private Ryan; bad guys walking down the road to the Bond manor = Witness; numerous The Dark Knight ones; Silva's island = Russian junk yard from Goldeneye; more that I can't remember but noticed them while watching.
Oh, and another thing: Taking a cue from Nolan's Batman (most obvious), Mendes has a lot of shots of Craig just standing there, in relief to the background, staring into space and guarding the realm. With Craig's size, it works. Don't think it would have worked with any of the others. And the fight w/the neon sign in the background, making the fight just silhouette, was great. I very much enjoyed the visuals of that scene.
Devil May Care
Bond is Back! And he's...different*.
To celebrate what would have been Ian Fleming's 100th birthday, the estate commissioned literary novelist Sebastian Faulks to write the "thirteenth" novel that Fleming he never wrote. (For those keeping score, there are fourteen Bond titles published under Fleming's name. Two of them, For Your Eyes Only and Octopus-y were story collections. Thus, Fleming only wrote twelve novels, the last one being 1965's posthumous book, The Man with the Golden Gun.) By choosing this course of action, Devil May Care eliminates some forty years worth of novels written about James Bond by other authors. You could think of it as the literary equivalent of a reboot, just as the movie version of "Casino Royale" was to the films.
Faulks, born in 1953, the same year the first Bond book, Casino Royale, was published (coincidence?) is better known as a literary writer. I haven't read any of his books so I can't comment on his own style. However, other reviewers have commented on Faulks-as-Fleming is pretty dead-on. I've read the first five Bond books (check out CommanderBond.net for the true novel order) and I can tell that Faulks did a good job at emulating the style of the late author.
*In the opening sentence, I said that this Bond is different. He is only different if you've never read any of the Fleming novels. The Bond of the books and the Bond of the movies are different creatures. Heck, the movie Bonds themselves are different creatures. Differences can be good. Let me put it this way: the movie "Casino Royale" knocked my socks off it was so good. This book is better than half the films--easily--but not as good as, say, the movie or novel From Russia With Love.
Like most Bond films, Devil May Care starts off with a "pre-credit" sequence. Here, an Algerian drug dealer in France gets his tongue ripped out with pliers. Cue Theme Song. Next, we see Bond at the end of a three-month sabbatical after his encounter with Scaramanga in The Man with the Golden Gun. (Again, judging by the movie version, my first question was "Really?" Perhaps the book is better. Couldn't possibly be worse.) Bond stays on Barbados and learns tennis, travels in France, and ends up in Rome. One day at an outside café, he sees a man with a large left hand wearing a white glove. Odd, thinks Bond, I think that chap is up to no good. (That's foreshadowing, by the way) With two weeks remaining on his sabbatical, he has a decision to make: return to the field or be benched behind a desk for the rest of his career. A lovely woman catches his eye and, after having dinner with the married woman, declines her invitation to go up to her room. Yes, I said declines. Yes, this is a James Bond book. It's okay. Just keep reading.
For Bond, that refusal of a sexual encounter is proof that he's lost the edge. Well, until he gets a cable from M ordering him to report back to London. Here is where Faulks demonstrates that he's read all of Fleming's material. And it's part of the book's charm. If you have never read the Fleming novels, you are missing a lot about the fictional Bond. When Bond returns to London, Faulks takes you to Bond's house and you get to see his housemaid--and she ain't one of the tall, slim, scantily clad ones either. In the novels, the second book, Moonraker, shows you Bond's house and his habits for the first time. Faulks lovingly throws in snippets of details that the die-hards will already know and new readers--perhaps those who only know Bond from the films--will find appealing. Faulks has Bond remember past adversaries throughout the book and this plays like a greatest hits.
M dispatches Bond to investigate Julian Gorner, a pharmaceutical magnate suspected of importing heroin into the West. And, lo and behold, if Gorner isn't the man with the large left hand that Bond just happened to see in France one day. (I'll be honest: I rolled my eyes on that one. Too coincidental and unnecessary.) Bond lands in France and is met by Scarlett Papava who just so happens to be the same lady Bond refused to sleep with back in Rome (roll eyes again). This time, she's being her real self and wants Bond's help to rescue her sister from the clutches of Gorner.
Every Bond story has to have the inevitable battle of wills between Bond and his adversary. Think golf with Goldfinger, shooting geese with Drax, or that horrid video game in "Never Say Never Again." This time, it's tennis (eye roll again because that's just exactly what Bond took up in Barbados during his sabbatical. Good thing, huh?) I think you can guess who wins. Which brings up a question: in almost all these films with the egomaniacal villain who think that they are so superior to Bond, why do they always feel the need to cheat?
I'll admit that the eye rolling stopped here. Once Bond makes his way to Iran (a first for Bond), the scope of a typical Bond story rolls along very quickly. He meets up with Darius Alizadeh, MI6's man in Tehran. He's a great character and as staunch an ally as Darko Kerim Bey in From Russia With Love. And you get a real sense of what Bond likes to eat, something that is usually skipped over in the films. Soon, Bond discovers the Caspian Sea Monster (as told by a man not unlike Quarrel from "Dr. No" who thinks the tank in that film is a dragon) and Gorner's plan to bring Britain to its knees (like in "Goldeneye" and "Die Another Day") in a manner not unlike Elliot Carver in "Tomorrow Never Dies." Got all that?
One thing that surprised me was the climax. It wasn't at the end; it occurred about three-fourths of the way into the book. But, like "The Spy Who Loved Me," the #1 Henchman returns and, well, you could have guessed that. And if you're wondering if Bond and Scarlett end up together...come on! It's a James Bond story. What do you think?
You get past the opening, slower sections and the book picks up a head of steam that barrels it way to the end. I listened to the book and the reader, Tristan Layton, does a fine job. He even nails the stereotypical Texas accent of Felix Leiter (bet you didn't know Felix was a Texan if you just watched the movies).
I certainly enjoyed the book and look forward to reading others as they are released. I'm up to Book 6 in the novels, Dr. No, and, after reading Devil May Care, I might tackle the rest of the Fleming books soon. I always hesitate to plow through novels by authors who are dead because there are a finite number of books to be read and I want to savor them. But if the Fleming estate continues to commission books as enjoyable as this one, we'll all have our constant fix of James Bond for years to come.


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Sweet peppers range in color from green to yellow, orange, red, purple, and black. Red bell peppers are fully ripened green bell peppers, with a milder, sweeter flavor. Other peppers include the red, heart-shaped pimiento; the pale green, slender and curved bull's horn; the long, tapered Cubanelle, which ranges in color from yellow to red; and the sweet banana pepper, which is yellow and banana-shaped.
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Huge development planned for Haywood County: Developers say things are a go, although local residents and officials wonder
By Julia Merchant • Staff Writer
If all goes as planned, Haywood County will one day be home to a 4,500-acre mega-resort that could drastically change the face of tourism in Western North Carolina — and what it means to call Haywood County home.
The development, dubbed Cataloochee Wilderness Resort, is to be located near the intersections of U.S. 276 and I-40 and will span both sides of the valley along the Jonathan Creek area, reaching from one ridgeline to the other.
Obstacles for pulling off such a large-scale development are monumental, however.
Planning for the resort is still in the very preliminary stages. So preliminary, in fact, that while developers are touting Greg Norman and Arnold Palmer golf courses as part of the plans, representatives for the golf companies have heard nothing of the project.
The biggest obstacle could prove to be acquiring the number of acres required for the project. Key landowners in the area have already said they won't sell.
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Minimal land, if any, has actually been bought or sold, and the developers have yet to secure the necessary permits from the county or the N.C. Department of Environment and Natural Resources.
That hasn't stopped the parent company, Cataloochee Companies LLC, from drawing up an ambitious proposal.
According to a Cataloochee Companies information packet, the project is divided into several residential, commercial and retail phases that will include more than 1 million square feet of leasable area in 30 buildings, a 450,000 square foot Home Store, a 14-screen cinema, restaurants, a 100-room hotel, a ski resort, two lakes, two golf courses and 2,250 single-family lots.
Frank Singleton, spokesman for the project, said Jonathan Creek was picked for the site of the development due to its location at the intersection of I-40 and U.S. 276 near the Tennessee line.
"It's a high traffic area with destination type traffic and people driving through. There's a robust local tourism economy that draws people to the valley," Singleton explained.
"By and large, Western North Carolina is going through a lot of growth as a tourism destination. Given that that growth is going to occur, that transportation corridor really makes sense," he said.
"It's really going to be an outdoor experience and residential. The intention is to adhere to land stewardship, providing economic impact and jobs and really making sure the project has the feel of a development that Jonathan Valley wants," Singleton added.
Will landowners cooperate?
The Jonathan Creek community wanting the Cataloochee Wilderness Resort is something the developers of the project are banking on. To make the project a reality, the company will need to obtain thousands of acres currently in the hands of hundreds of property owners.
It's unclear whether any land has yet been formally acquired. "It's certainly premature to purchase land, but there are sellers' agreements in place with the principals from Cataloochee Company. The company has met with individuals who are interested in offering their property for the project," Singleton said.
Alison Davidson, an environmental permit coordinator for the N.C. Department of Environment and Natural Resources, was told by officials from URS Corporation, the engineering firm overseeing the project, that some land had been acquired, though they declined to say how much.
Some landowners in Jonathan Creek say they've been left in the dark when it comes to the proposed resort. P.J. Farmer, whose family owns 120 acres in the area, was surprised to learn that his property was included in the plans for the development.
"All I know about this company is I lie right in the middle of where they're planning to develop," Farmer said.
"These guys have some big plans and I know they're talking to a lot of people, but as far as I know, no money has exchanged hands with anybody else. We've talked and we're not really interested in doing anything with them," he said.
Farmer said he received a brochure several years ago detailing the proposed development, and isn't sure how serious the company is about getting the project off the ground.
"I really don't know what to believe," he said.
Farmer is skeptical of some of the company's proposed plans. For example, one of the lakes the company plans to build would have only one tributary — a creek that is almost completely dry.
"Their plans to do some of this stuff are physically impossible," he said.
James Lowe, a real estate agent who owns property in Jonathan Creek, said he's heard rumors of a development going into the area for four years.
"If it all did come together, I think it would be an asset to Jonathan Valley and the complete community as well, but I've not heard of them buying land or anything, so I'm not getting too excited about it," he said.
Jonathan Massie, who owns property on Cove Creek near the development site, has his mind made up if the developer approaches him about acquiring his property.
"I won't be selling. Our whole lives have been in this area for 50 years or more. It's sentimental to me. I was raised here; my whole family was raised here. I'm not much for putting a development in Jonathan Creek to start with," he said.
Massie said he's far from alone in his sentiments.
"Nobody around here wants that. I talked to some of my neighbors about it and no one in the entire community is up for this. They're all against it," he said.
Singleton said his company isn't deterred by those unwilling to sell. Because the resort is still in its preliminary stages, the company is flexible in its plans.
"Historically when you look at any large scale development of this sort, there is a long, fairly arduous process. Certainly in the process of going forward, there will be people who don't want to participate. That may change the size of the development," he said.
Singleton, though, is optimistic.
"You can assume there will be people that want to participate for their own financial and business reasons. Over the period of time when we introduced this project, we found pretty good acceptance," he said.
Marc Pruett, erosion control supervisor for Haywood County, is less certain of the company's ability to acquire the necessary land.
"Five-thousand acres have not been obtained by this company in that area. And there are hundreds of property owners down there scratching their heads, (wondering) how much are they paying, who's offering? It's kind of an oddball thing," Pruett said.
The permitting process
If Cataloochee Companies is successful in obtaining 4,500 acres in Jonathan Creek, they'll have to endure a strenuous permitting process on local, state and federal levels.
The company planned to discuss the necessary project permits with the N.C. Department of Environment and Natural Resources and other entities at a Nov. 20 meeting. Davidson, a permit coordinator for DENR, declined to speculate which permits the company will likely have to obtain.
Pruett, who will oversee permitting on a local level, became aware of the project through DENR. The company hadn't notified him or asked about permits, which isn't unusual, he said, but the scope of the project surprised him.
"Oftentimes people start making their plans early on before everything comes together. I don't know that we were surprised by it as much as it was an eyebrow raiser to think about 5,000 acres being developed," Pruett said.
Pruett ran down a list of permits he thinks the resort will likely need: approval for subdivision work through the county planning office; a land disturbing permit for all areas that will be worked on; permits from the Army Corps of Engineers to work near streams; Division of Water Quality approval for impact to surface water; permits from the state's section of land quality for dams for the lakes; building permits from the building inspections office; permits for construction of retaining walls, residential structures and bridges.
Singleton, though, said Cataloochee Companies is prepared for the lengthy permitting process. The company is taking that into account in its projections for completion.
"It will probably take five to seven years for the first three phases of this project to be completed," Singleton estimated.
It's a go, company says
Despite the daunting task of acquiring thousands of acres of land and the prospect of a difficult permitting process, Singleton says the project is no longer a persistent rumor in the Jonathan Creek community — it's official. Mark Clasby, the Economic Development director for Haywood County, confirmed that he and Cataloochee Companies reps have been in talks for roughly a year.
Singleton said the project has secured investors — he named Wells Fargo as one — and that several nationally known companies, like Del Webb and Pulte Homes, have climbed on board.
However, the project was news to other companies reported to be involved.
Sarah Stewart, a public relations representative for Greg Norman Golf Course Design, was surprised when the company's name was mentioned as part of the project in a newspaper article. She asked the two men who head up the golf course design division if they knew of the project, but neither was aware of it.
An official at Palmer Golf Course Design who declined to give her name said the company was not under contract with Cataloochee Companies. Larry Whiteley with Bass Pro Shop called the plans "strictly rumor" and John Castillo with Cabela's said he hadn't heard of the idea. Castillo said it was plausible, though it would be only the second Cabela's to locate in the South (the other one is near Baton Rouge, LA).
Most of the spokespeople for these companies said it was possible that their employer could be in talks with Cataloochee Companies without their knowledge.
"We're just in discussion — there are no agreements in place," Singleton said.
Singleton said more information would be forthcoming.
"Things are going well. We're just getting to the point where people in the community know about this. We're getting the word out — there will likely be a community briefing after the first of the year," Singleton said.
That's welcome news for Jonathan Creek residents like Farmer, who harbors doubts about the project's validity.
"They could talk about it for a year and talk about it until they're blue in the face," he said.


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George Bush Sr. on VoteMatch | |
VoteMatch Responses
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VoteMatch Question & Answer (Click on question for explanation and background) |
Based on these stances: (Click on topic for excerpt & citation) |
No opinion on
topic 1: Abortion is a woman's unrestricted right (0 points on Social scale) | Shifted towards pro-life camp seeing callousness of abortion: Opposes topic 1 1962: Pro-choice candidate, for population control: Favors topic 1 1970: Introduced Family Planning Services Act: Strongly Favors topic 1 Supported family planning as ambassador & Congressman: Favors topic 1 1973: Nominally in favor of overturning Roe v. Wade: Opposes topic 1 Pro-life; against advocating abortion in any form: Strongly Opposes topic 1 |
topic 2: Legally require hiring women & minorities (+2 points on Economic scale) | 1980: Supported Equal Rights Amendment, but not as V.P.: Favors topic 2 1968: Supported open housing (against racial discrimination): Favors topic 2 1980: As Reagan's V.P., supported school prayer: Favors topic 2 1964: Advocated states' rights over Civil Rights Act: Strongly Opposes topic 2 1963: Civil Rights Bill violates constitutional rights: Strongly Opposes topic 2 1990: vetoed Civil Rights Act & voter registration bill: Opposes topic 2 Legislation is not enough to eliminate discrimination: Strongly Favors topic 2 Civil Rights Act: ban discrimination without quotas: Opposes topic 2 |
topic 3: Comfortable with same-sex marriage (+2 points on Social scale) | 1998: gay status of personal aide "doesn't matter to us": Favors topic 3 |
Strongly Favors
topic 4: Keep God in the public sphere (-5 points on Social scale) | 1964: Opposed War on Poverty: Favors topic 4 Pledge of Allegiance: Kids should say "One nation under God": Strongly Favors topic 4 Flag Amendment: about unique symbol of one nation under God: Strongly Favors topic 4 1000 points of light: replace spending with volunteers: Strongly Favors topic 4 |
Strongly Opposes
topic 5: Expand ObamaCare (+5 points on Economic scale) | 1964: Medicare is socialized medicine: Strongly Opposes topic 5 Frivolous lawsuits run up medical costs by $25 billion: Strongly Opposes topic 5 Choice and coverage: health insurance tax credit: Opposes topic 5 Let people buy into Medicaid; no mandated insurance: Opposes topic 5 |
topic 6: Privatize Social Security (+2 points on Economic scale) | Last thing we need to do is mess around with Social Security: Favors topic 6 We should be unafraid to reduce future benefits: Favors topic 6 |
Strongly Favors
topic 7: Vouchers for school choice (+5 points on Economic scale) | America 2000: accountable schools with parental choice: Strongly Favors topic 7 Assess student performance in 4th, 8th, and 12th grades: Favors topic 7 Churches & private schools provide 93% of education funding: Favors topic 7 Churches & private schools provide 93% of education funding: Strongly Favors topic 7 |
topic 8: Fight EPA regulatory over-reach (+2 points on Social scale) | 1989: America will lose no wetlands on my watch: Strongly Opposes topic 8 Protect natural resources as hunter & outdoorsman: Favors topic 8 1991: Rejected requiring 25% recycling of incinerator waste: Favors topic 8 Onerous environmental regulation will cause job loss: Favors topic 8 Rely on the magic of the marketplace for energy strategy: Opposes topic 8 Look for common ground: economic growth & clean environment: Opposes topic 8 |
Strongly Favors
topic 9: Stricter punishment reduces crime (-5 points on Social scale) | Willie Horton Ads: don't release repeat offenders: Strongly Favors topic 9 Habeas corpus reform, so you don't have endless appeals: Strongly Favors topic 9 Renewed investment in fighting violent street crime: Strongly Favors topic 9 Freedom from crime is a fundamental civil right: Favors topic 9 |
topic 10: Absolute right to gun ownership (+2 points on Economic scale) | 1995: Ripped up NRA card for calling feds jack-booted thugs: Opposes topic 10 Opposes gun control because it does not work: Strongly Favors topic 10 |
topic 11: Higher taxes on the wealthy (+2 points on Economic scale) | 1989: Prioritized cutting capital gains tax: Strongly Opposes topic 11 Cut capital gains tax on those earning over $200K per year: Strongly Opposes topic 11 1992 growth plan: deregulate & cut taxes: Opposes topic 11 Abandoned �Read my lips: No new taxes� pledge: Strongly Favors topic 11 Demanded capital gains tax reduction; yielded to Congress: Opposes topic 11 20M jobs via tax cuts; R&D credits; & enterprise zones: Strongly Opposes topic 11 |
topic 12: Pathway to citizenship for illegal aliens (-3 points on Social scale) | 1980: Illegal aliens attend public schools like citizens do: Strongly Favors topic 12 1989: Vetoed letting Tiananmen students overstay visas: Strongly Opposes topic 12 Supports �English First� but not via federal law: Opposes topic 12 |
Strongly Favors
topic 13: Support & expand free trade (+5 points on Economic scale) | 1992 talks led to NAFTA agreement: Strongly Favors topic 13 Create new jobs through increases in exports: Favors topic 13 Make Americas a zone of peace, free trade, and democracy: Strongly Favors topic 13 For NAFTA because exports critical to economy: Strongly Favors topic 13 New World Order: open borders; open trade; open minds: Favors topic 13 |
topic 14: Support American Exceptionalism (-3 points on Economic scale) | OpEd: internationalist by instinct and upbringing: Strongly Opposes topic 14 Became UN Ambassador after campaigning against UN: Strongly Opposes topic 14 1971: Argued for dual UN representation for China & Taiwan: Strongly Opposes topic 14 Democrats see America as just another pleasant country: Strongly Favors topic 14 |
No opinion on
topic 15: Expand the military (0 points on Social scale) | Post-Cold War: Cancel B-2; small ICBMs & Peacekeeper missile: Opposes topic 15 Cooperate with USSR to cancel Peacekeeper ICBMs: Opposes topic 15 Refocus SDI on limited ballistic missile strikes: Favors topic 15 Stay strong to protect the peace: Favors topic 15 Invaded Panama in 1989 to force Noriega from power: Neutral on topic 15 |
topic 16: Make voter registration easier (+2 points on Social scale) | 1967: Fundraising not necessarily corrupt; misuse is: Favors topic 16 |
topic 17: Avoid foreign entanglements (-3 points on Social scale) | Supported 1990 South Africa sanctions: Favors topic 17 Built consensus with UN to move against Saddam Hussein: Opposes topic 17 Made deals with Gorbachev�s USSR, then Yeltsin�s Russia: Strongly Favors topic 17 1990 Iraqi invasion of Kuwait: "This shall not stand!": Strongly Opposes topic 17 1990: Misled Saudis that Saddam massed troops on border: Strongly Opposes topic 17 2003: Invasion of Iraq undid a lifetime of work: Favors topic 17 �This will not stand� began 13-year campaign against Saddam: Strongly Opposes topic 17 OpEd: Aided Saddam even after he used chemical weapons: Strongly Opposes topic 17 OpEd: Authorized Saddam to crush 1991 Shiite resistance: Strongly Opposes topic 17 1991: �All means necessary� to expel Saddam from Kuwait: Opposes topic 17 Force the Butcher of Baghdad to end the Rape of Kuwait: Strongly Opposes topic 17 1964: Any and all weapons in Vietnam, including nukes: Strongly Opposes topic 17 |
topic 18: Prioritize green energy (+2 points on Economic scale) | 1990 Acid Rain trading program achieved its goals: Strongly Opposes topic 18 Helped negotiate Kyoto Treaty on climate change: Strongly Favors topic 18 Took no stance nor action on global climate change: Strongly Opposes topic 18 Supports environmentally-responsive access to ANWR: Opposes topic 18 Rely on the magic of the marketplace for energy strategy: Opposes topic 18 Pioneer in the offshore drilling industry: Strongly Opposes topic 18 |
Strongly Favors
topic 19: Marijuana is a gateway drug (-5 points on Social scale) | At end of Cold War, re-declared War on Drugs: Strongly Favors topic 19 1986: Oversaw National Narcotics Border Interdiction System: Favors topic 19 1990: Make fighting the drug problem a top priority: Strongly Favors topic 19 1990: Declaration of Cartagena to fight war on drugs: Strongly Favors topic 19 I don't believe legalizing narcotics is the answer: Strongly Favors topic 19 Noriega in prison helps Panama and hurts drug lords: Favors topic 19 Take my word for it: This scourge will stop: Strongly Favors topic 19 |
Strongly Favors
topic 20: Stimulus better than market-led recovery (-5 points on Economic scale) | 1,000 points of light: volunteerism against social ills: Strongly Favors topic 20 Places of worship lead members to light of service: Strongly Favors topic 20 |
George Bush Sr. is a Moderate Conservative
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When Shoegaze Week editor Dom Gourlay emailed DiS staff asking if we could come up with some words on our favourite shoegaze songs, I rather lazily sent him a link to something I'd written on my blog (jag etc etc) about hearing My Bloody Valentine's 'You Made Me Realise' live and said I could probably write something new in the same area. My laziness was further indulged when he suggested DiS just ran the entire piece. So here we are.
A fairly po-faced list about My Bloody Valentine
So I mostly went along to see one of MBV's reunion dates at The Roundhouse because it seemed like the type of thing I ought to do... as much as I'm a fan of Loveless and quite fond of Isn't Anything, I figured it'd ultimately be kind of lovely in a boring way.
In fact what happened was the precise opposite... as it turns out everyone (probably my mum included) apart from me seemed to be fully clued up on the fact that they end their gigs with something called 'the holocaust section', 20-40 minutes of white noise extending from the song 'You Made Me Realise', the volume of which was alleged to be around 130 db, which apparently is about the same as a jet taking off from 100m away. Er, anyway, without being too gushing (I sent a text to a friend describing it as 'sound as beauty as fire as fire as fire'... ahem), it was incredible, so much so I went to see them a week later in Manchester. And naturally I feel compelled to put up a list of things the holocaust section (by far the best bit of the gig) made me think about. Groovy.
Video: My Bloody Valentine: 'You Made Me Realise'
From a musical perspective, I totally don't know if what happened was any good or not. I mean, probably it was - My Bloody Valentine have one of the best guitarists, like, ever - but I sort of still wonder if it's more a case that the main set was 'music' and the holocaust section is 'art'. Like, could me and three friends do the same if we had the right equipment and Kevin Shields talked us through what to do? Probably not, but y'know... maybe.
It wasn't just a blank roar. I mean, I think actually it was just a blank roar (certainly that's what you get if you look at any footage on YouTube), but the physical and psychological impact properly makes you hallucinate: when I saw them at the Roundhouse I thought they'd started up a slowed down version of the riff to 'Only Shallow', then at the Apollo my friend thought he heard singing... neither true. It's like, if this kind of Niagara of noise makes you imagine pretty things, does that make it pretty music?
Could you use music as an actual drug? Especially after the Apollo gig, which had a longer holocaust (about 35 mins) I felt really stoned by the end, while during it I'd found it really hard to tell where the band were on stage, even though they hadn't moved. Because if Kevin Shields actually found a note that gets you high, well, that's your explanation for what he's been doing for the last 15 years.
I've never seen any other band do anything like that, which makes me suspect I'm kind of vanilla... I mean, MBV can't have patented the idea and it's not like it's an actual song per se, so why wouldn't other people be doing shit like this all the time? Has this big venue reunion tour kind of served to turn something that was way more underground in 1992 into a kind of theme-park of the avant garde? And if nobody's exceeded them, why not..?
Given it was all old material, these were basically nostalgia dates, but it didn't feel like that at all... is there a certain volume at which nostalgia no longer applies?
All reports suggest the section was in fact just as loud as it was in the early 90s. Which is lovely, but it almost saddens me they/nobody is doing anything harder... Though I suppose it's not exactly at the top of most amp manufacturer's lists to design one that kills people. But I guess as a party piece it doesn't exactly have anywhere to go or develop, though I suppose it's not exactly the type of thing you could technically get bored of.
Some friends of a friend took pills to watch it. Can't decide if that was the best or worst idea ever.
It's going to be really, really funny when they play it at Bestival.
[NB - it freaked out a lot of people at Bestival, though inevitably it was much quieter. After about 15 minutes they suddenly jumped back into 'You Made Me Realise', which was really, really weird, a total jolt to the nerves]